Untold Stories Education Pack
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Untold Stories HYMN & COCKTAIL STICKS Education Pack Contents Contents .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3 Alan Bennett ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Play Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Interview with the Director................................................................................................................. 9 Meet The Cast ................................................................................................................................... 10 Interview with an Actor .................................................................................................................... 13 Rehearsal Diary ................................................................................................................................. 14 Rehearsal Reports ............................................................................................................................. 21 Credits ............................................................................................................................................... 23 2 Introduction This pack has been designed to support your visit to The Watermill to watch our production of Untold Stories This is a digital pack; where you see this arrow there is a link that you can click on to view other material online. Your feedback is most welcome, please email [email protected] or call me on 01635 570934. Don’t forget that we offer workshops on most aspects of drama, and visit many schools in the surrounding area to work with students and teachers. For an education brochure, please visit the Outreach pages on our website, or contact us. For our schools brochure please click here. We hope you find the pack useful. Emma Bradbury Outreach Assistant Email: [email protected] | Tel: 01635 570934 The Watermill Theatre Bagnor, Newbury, Berks RG20 8AE www.watermill.org.uk www.watermill.org.uk/education_packs This pack was written and designed by Emma Bradbury with contributions from Amy Wicks and Francesca Reidy. The Watermill’s core Education and Outreach programme is generously supported by The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation. Rehearsal and production photos by Philip Tull. 3 Alan Bennett Early Influence of Theatre Alan Bennett was born on 9th May 1934 in Armley, Leeds. He lived with his father, Walter, a butcher, and his mother, Lilian. Whilst doing his National Service, Bennett learnt Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists in Cambridge. He was later accepted with a scholarship into Exeter College, Oxford and graduated with a first class degree in Medieval History in 1957. During Bennett’s time at university, he was a member of the theatre group and comedy society, The Oxford Revue. The group’s primary aim is to promote a comedy community at the university, whilst also producing its own comedy shows throughout the year. It is managed by a committee of comedy writers and performers and has included names such as Al Murray and Rowan Atkinson. In 1960 Bennett, along with fellow Oxford Revue member, Dudley Moore, and the Cambridge Footlights’ Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller, performed the show Beyond the Fringe at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is widely held that the play has had a great impact on many other shows and has since had an enormous influence on almost every popular panel show to date. Fun Facts • Bennett has allegedly declined both a knighthood and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. • It’s said that on BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme on 30 September 2010, Bennett was asked the same set of questions about his own TV plays that a contestant on BBC One's Mastermind (1972) had answered as his specialist subject. The contestant answered more questions correctly that Alan Bennett. Acting Career Alan’s involvement with The Oxford Revue was just the beginning of his successful career as an actor. He went on to perform in many shows in both London and in New York. Bennett has a dead-pan delivered voice with a strong Leeds accent, which is very distinctive. This, along with his sharp humour, has made his readings of his work very popular, especially his autobiographical recordings. One of his most well-known and popular readings is A. A Milne’s Winnie The Pooh but he was also the voice of many other children’s characters including Mole in Wind in the Willows, The Owl in Meg and Mog and various characters in Peter Rabbit. Writing Career Since his success as an actor, Bennett has become one of the leading British dramatists. His first stage play, Forty Years On, was put on stage in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays, screen plays, short stories and novels followed. His television series, Talking Heads, has become a modern day classic as have many of his works for the stage, including The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, The Madness of George III and an adaption of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. 4 The National Theatre’s production of Bennett’s, The History Boys, won numerous awards including The Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle awards for Best Play, an Olivier Award for Best New Play, and the South Bank Award. It also won many more awards when it transferred to Broadway, New York, and was later made into a film of the same name. Fun Quotes “My claim to literary fame is that I used to deliver meat to a woman who became T.S. Eliot's mother-in-law.” Alan Bennett “One obstacle always stopped me directing films - namely, having to say, 'Action!' My instinct would be to say, 'Er, I think if everybody's agreeable we might as well sort of start now - that is if you're ready’.” Alan Bennett His collection of prose, Untold Stories, won the PEN/Ackerley Prize for autobiography in 2006. Much of his work draws upon his childhood in Leeds. Whilst he is praised for his clear observations of life in Leeds, the diversity and boldness of his work is often undervalued. When Bennett started writing Untold Stories he was in and out of hospital after being diagnosed with cancer. It is said that the book is called Untold Stories because Bennett didn’t think he would be alive when it was published, so he wanted to share the rest of his diaries and stories about his Mam and Dad. Having overcome his illness, Bennett still continues to write today. 5 Play Overview Untold Stories, written in 2005, is a poignant autobiographical memoir, reflecting Alan Bennett’s childhood, relationships with his parents and his life growing up in Leeds. This book also includes his personal diaries from 1996- 2004. Hymn and Cocktail Sticks was later written by Bennett in 2012 and takes themes from Untold Stories. Hymn “That I wrote Hymn is entirely thanks to the composer George Fenton, whom I’ve known since he appeared as a schoolboy in my first play Forty Years On, and who has written music for many of the plays since. In 2001, the Medici Quartet commissioned him to write a piece commemorating their 30th anniversary and he asked me to collaborate. Hymn was the result. First performed at the Harrogate Festival in August 2001, it is a series of memoirs with music. Besides purely instrumental passages for the quartet, many of the speeches are under-scored, incorporating some of the hymns and music I remember from my childhood and youth.” Alan Bennett, September 2012 Hymn is an underscored reflection on Bennett’s life, which beautifully retells connections that he had with music throughout his childhood. He recollects his father playing the violin listening to the wireless, watching an orchestra from behind the stage with his view being disrupted by double basses and even trying to learn to play the violin himself. The play is underscored by a string quartet who play music composed by George Left: Alan Bennett (Roger Ringrose), Right: The Fenton, inspired by church hymns. Quartet (Kate Robon-Stuart, Richard Gibson, Harry ) “It’s a dwindling band; old-fashioned and of certain age, you can pick us out at funerals and memorial services, because we sing the hymns without the book.” Alan Bennett, Hymn Cocktail Sticks Cocktail Sticks reveals memories about Bennett’s relationship with his parents. It explores themes of class, social acceptance and there is a recurring theme of embarrassment. Bennett recollects how his Mam would find herself reading magazines and then construct her own vision of how people lived. “I keep reading about these cocktail parties in Woman’s Own.” Left: Alan Bennett (Roger Ringrose), Right: Ma m (Lucy Tregear) and Alan Bennett (Roger Ringrose) 6 She idealises a life of cocktail parties and coffee mornings where she could invite her friends, but because neither Mam nor Dad drank (because of Dad’s stomach problems) they never held such parties. Bennett narrates joyful memories of attending Oxford University, listening to his father playing the violin and performing Beyond the Fringe. Throughout the play both his mother and father’s health gradually deteriorate and Bennett recollects how he navigated these darker times of his life. When his Mam passes away after a long-suffering period with dementia, Bennett recollects how he